Abstract: Alu family is the primate specific short interspersed repetitive elements(SINEs).Its abundance and diversity distribution in genome,high methylation level and polymorphic for insertion make them ide-ally suitable as tools in forensic applications.The application of Alu sequence in forensic genomics,in-clude DNA quantitation,race determination,species and gender identification,personal identification,paternity testing and whole-genome amplification.The principles and characteristics of these Alu-based techniques are also summarized.The prospect of Alu as forensic molecular marker is discussed as well.

Key words: forensic genetics, Alu elements, review[publication type]